Enterprise Conversion Quirks

<FONT face=Tahoma>wow... just wow... i'm surprised they haven't printed it out and placed in the wooden table... :D<BR><BR>"there's more to&nbsp;ASP.NET than just .aspx extensions..." -me (i think)<BR><BR><BR><BR></FONT>

Shizzle2006-06-19 14:47

<P>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</P>
<P><EM>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</EM></P>

Bus Raker2006-06-19 14:47

Alex Papadimoulis:

<P><BR>Open up the Web Application in a web browser (the login page will appear) </P>
<OL>
<LI>Go to the File menu and click Save As.
<LI>In the File Name box, enter the page's name, but use an ASPX at the end (i.e. "login.aspx")
<LI>Select "Web Page, Complete" from the File Type the Click OK
<LI>Add the newly saved file (login.aspx) and it's corresponding folder (login_files) to the ASP.NET project
<LI>Navigate through the application and repeat for every page</LI></OL>
<P>

</P>
<P>Sweet!&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm going to convert thedailywtf back to Java by following the steps in reverse order.</P>
<P>Fifth I hope...</P>

isaphrael2006-06-19 14:48

Alex Papadimoulis:

<p>... after receiving his first assignment to make a minor change to 100+ Javascript and CSS files, Dean decided that this type enterprise is not the type of experience he's looking for.</p>

<br><br><br>wow, too bad dead didn't know that UltraEdit [www.ultraedit.com] has a 'find &amp; replace across files &amp; directories' function.<br><br>[i'm not a shill.&nbsp; at least, not a piad one]<br>

JBL2006-06-19 14:48

Alex Papadimoulis:

To remain consistent, each page had a slightly different coding style and communicated with each other in a slightly different manner. Some of the central pages had to read input parameters (such as username) in the querystring, cookies, and session.

<br>I strive for such "individuality" in all my code segments.<br>

Ben2006-06-19 14:48

He passed up the opportunity of automating this 1218 step process.<br>

iowacoder2006-06-19 14:48

Wow, that is just insane!!<br>

zamies2006-06-19 14:48

An enterprisey Web Jungle!<br>
<br>
But seriously, I do this all the time.&nbsp; When I don't have the
right codec or driver to view print or do whatever I want to do, I
change the extension and it works.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>

Bus Raker2006-06-19 14:49

<P>

Anonymous:

How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.<BR>

</P>
<P>I would imagine it would make a static site.&nbsp; Maybe that's the WTF.&nbsp; Or are you just being sarcastic?</P>

Bus Raker2006-06-19 14:50

Bus Raker:

<P>

Anonymous:

How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.<BR>

</P>
<P>I would imagine it would make a static site.&nbsp; Maybe that's the WTF.&nbsp; Or are you just being sarcastic?</P>
<P>

<br>Well, that solves it then - if only he had used UltraEdit, it wouldn't have really been so bad.<br>

my name is missing2006-06-19 14:53

I've worked for managers like this in my previous job. This is enterprise-grade WTFery. Running away is the best defense strategy, as the developers will always be blamed for anything that goes wrong and the manager promoted.<br>

Dazed2006-06-19 14:54

Dilbert's PHB has been found. A team of six maintenance developers for goodness sake. Plenty of money available to have people doing something mindnumbingly stupid but none to sort the mess out. I'd sure like to have asked the PHB <b>why</b> a rewrite was out of the question.

A thoroughly worthy WTF.

Will2006-06-19 14:54

Will to live fading...

Bus Raker2006-06-19 14:55

<P>

Anonymous:

He passed up the opportunity of automating this 1218 step process.<BR>

</P>
<P>Aren't there going to be a ba-zillion copies of the common graphics etc.?</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>[&lt;b&gt;edited by:&lt;/b&gt; Bus Raker at 2:57 PM (GMT -5) on Mon, Jun 19 2006]<BR>Oops .. there's 6, and 1218 is a multiple of 6.&nbsp; My bad.
<P>&nbsp;</P>

rammadman2006-06-19 15:03

<P>I would have used a crawler like web whacker and resticted to the site, and have a static picture of site in minutes. </P>
<P>Then calclulated the time it would have take and devote&nbsp;the time to find a new job!</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>WTF- rewrite is off the table, for a conversion!!!!</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>

<tr id="tablerow" class="rowColor1">
<td class="rank">50</td>
<td class="company">
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/1165.html">Safeway</a>
</td>
<td class="revenue">38,416.0</td>
<td class="datacell">561.1</td></tr></tbody></table><br>Well, at least he narrowed it down (and I've worked with 5 companies out of this list and haven't seen that app).<br>

Benanov2006-06-19 15:09

People I work with have this same sort of odd compulsion.&nbsp; They wish to update a project done in revision 1.1 of our framework to the 2.0 revision (not related to .NET 1.1 vs. 2.0)<br><br>The amount of work necessary to port the code up that high (1.2 and 1.3 were non-trivial minor revisions of the framework and changed certain areas of the entire system pretty deeply; however none of them really marked a major version upgrade like 2.0 has) is a lot less than starting over from scratch and bringing the rules and customizations in.<br><br>But yet they insist.&nbsp; Especially when all of the hacks that were needed in an earlier revision of the base code to get X to work are completely useless now that X is in the framework itself.<br>

Television God2006-06-19 15:10

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.<br><br>They can either go back to fixing all that old crap, or suck it up and switch to the new crap.&nbsp; It's a tactic that has always worked every time I used it.&nbsp; If it hurts your bonus/salary raise then just run around the PHB and have a 1-1 with the VEEP who approved the changes originally.&nbsp; Be political!&nbsp; It's not like they really care that you stay there.<br><br>For all the PHB whining that goes on out there, you will discover that you can combat some of it if you are just a bit more aggressive, forceful and convincing (not conniving)--exactly the material "Management" looks for.<br>

el jaybird2006-06-19 15:21

<P>Sheesh.&nbsp; A team of 6, eh?&nbsp; I would have talked to them about banding together and mutinying by rewriting everything proper.&nbsp; With the amount of WTF'ery going on here, I bet the ol' boss wouldn't even notice.</P>
<P>Captcha: Genius</P>

ammoQ2006-06-19 15:23

What's the point in converting from JSP to ASP anyway? Isn't JSP more enterprisy?<br>

Bob Smith2006-06-19 15:25

Anonymous:

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

<p>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</p>
<p><em>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</em></p>

<br>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<br><br>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<br><br>

I don't Get it2006-06-19 15:28

<br><br>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <br><br>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<br>

Bob Smith2006-06-19 15:31

Anonymous:

<br><br>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <br><br>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<br>

<br><br>You've obviously never worked for a company that KNOWS its crappy, but wont invest the time and money to do it the right way. He said in the post that he was told 4 times that there would be no rewrite. its obvious his manager KNEW it needed it. <br><br>CAPTCHA : tps<br>

Swanny2006-06-19 15:34

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<P>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</P>
<P><EM>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</EM></P>
<P>

<BR>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<BR><BR>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<BR><BR>

</P>
<P>What do you gain?&nbsp; You're comparing ASP 3.0/JSP to ASP.Net and are asking the question what do you gain?&nbsp; Of course I agree that this was not the best upgrade path, but we've upgraded lots of apps to ASP.Net to take advantage of the tonnes of features/classes/functionality that is available in asp.net right out of the box.</P>

Shizzle2006-06-19 15:38

Anonymous:

<br><br>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <br><br>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<br>

<br>This reminds me of that experiment done with rats, where the manager electrifies some cheese, and everytime the rat tries to eat the cheese, it gets shocked.&nbsp; After some time, the rat learns that the cheese is going to cause a great deal of pain, and they decide to find something else to eat.&nbsp; I imagine programmers are at least as smart as these rats, and have similarly decided to stop chomping on the electrified cheese, and go look for a better hunk of cheese elsewhere.<br>

Eric L2006-06-19 15:40

<P>

Anonymous:

<BR>You've obviously never worked for a company that KNOWS its crappy, but wont invest the time and money to do it the right way. He said in the post that he was told 4 times that there would be no rewrite. its obvious his manager KNEW it needed it. <BR>

</P>
<P>Right, and that is all the more reason to make sure you seriously torture that manager for staying at a job where his superiors are so dumb, and he has no spine to contradict them <STRONG>BEFORE</STRONG> you cut and run :D</P>

bimbo692006-06-19 15:42

<P><STRONG>How would you smartasses QUICKLY convert a jsp application to an aspx application ?!</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>Well, image files and css's should be in one (two) folders, but the rest is fine.</STRONG></P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<OL>
<LI>Open up the Web Application in a web browser (the login page will appear)
<LI>Go to the File menu and click Save As.
<LI>In the File Name box, enter the page's name, but use an ASPX at the end (i.e. "login.aspx")
<LI>Select "Web Page, Complete" from the File Type the Click OK
<LI>Add the newly saved file (login.aspx) and it's corresponding folder (login_files) to the ASP.NET project
<LI>Edit the ASPX page and add the appropriate server-side code
<LI>Navigate through the application and repeat for every page</LI></OL>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>

Television God2006-06-19 15:42

Anonymous:

<p>

Anonymous:

<br>You've obviously never worked for a company that KNOWS its crappy, but wont invest the time and money to do it the right way. He said in the post that he was told 4 times that there would be no rewrite. its obvious his manager KNEW it needed it. <br>

</p>
<p>Right, and that is all the more reason to make sure you seriously torture that manager for staying at a job where his superiors are so dumb, and he has no spine to contradict them <strong>BEFORE</strong> you cut and run :D</p>

<br><br>Repeating the non-sensical means I will do the nonsensical.&nbsp; It's a publicly held company, not the military.&nbsp; Just play the political game.&nbsp; You might not survive... but if you want to cut and run anyway what's the point in not trying to end-run around the idiots?<br>

Shizzle2006-06-19 15:45

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<p>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</p>
<p><em>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</em></p>
<p>

<br>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<br><br>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<br><br>

</p>
<p>What do you gain?&nbsp; You're comparing ASP 3.0/JSP to ASP.Net and are asking the question what do you gain?&nbsp; Of course I agree that this was not the best upgrade path, but we've upgraded lots of apps to ASP.Net to take advantage of the tonnes of features/classes/functionality that is available in asp.net right out of the box.</p>

<br><br>I didn't realize it came in a box!&nbsp; (Are you a sales droid?&nbsp; Those are the only types who talk about how great a product is "out of the box")&nbsp; Also, I didn't realize Java was so crippled.&nbsp; Yeesh!&nbsp; I guess you have to have Microsoft write all your features/classes/functionality and put it in the box for you?&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with microsoft borgs, heh.<br><br>

This reminds me of an episode of This Old House (looked like it was from the 80s) where they were talking about how they used computers to create staircases.

To get a drawing to the computer controlled router they have to:

1) draw the part on a computer CAD system
2) print it out on a plotter
3) take it to a digitizing board where they have to manually pick the important points of the drawing
4) put that info into another computer
5) export the data on a punched paper tape
6) feed the paper tape to the routing machine

Captcha: 1337

PaulTomblin2006-06-19 15:52

Anonymous:

<br>Repeating the non-sensical means I will do the nonsensical.&nbsp; It's a publicly held company, not the military.&nbsp; Just play the political game.&nbsp; You might not survive... but if you want to cut and run anyway what's the point in not trying to end-run around the idiots?<br>

<br><br>And if you stick around playing the game, you've got a item on your resume that will be a net negative in the future, rather than cutting and running and finding something that will be a net positive.<br><br>Biggest mistake in my life was not realizing what a dysfunctional organization SunGard Trading Systems was until I'd been there a year.&nbsp; I hired a guy who realized it was dysfunctional after a week and quit and went back to his old job - I don't know if he stayed there, but I'll bet you anything he doesn't mention SunGard on his resume.<br><br>

sdasdfgsdgsdg2006-06-19 15:54

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<P>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</P>
<P><EM>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</EM></P>
<DIV>

<BR>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<BR><BR>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<BR><BR>

JSP can use things like Servlets, classes, EJBs; things that the whole J2EE framework provides.&nbsp; Those things have no real equivalent in classic ASP.</DIV>

kswanton2006-06-19 15:55

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<P>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</P>
<P><EM>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</EM></P>
<P>

<BR>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<BR><BR>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<BR><BR>

</P>
<P>What do you gain?&nbsp; You're comparing ASP 3.0/JSP to ASP.Net and are asking the question what do you gain?&nbsp; Of course I agree that this was not the best upgrade path, but we've upgraded lots of apps to ASP.Net to take advantage of the tonnes of features/classes/functionality that is available in asp.net right out of the box.</P>
<P>

<BR><BR>I didn't realize it came in a box!&nbsp; (Are you a sales droid?&nbsp; Those are the only types who talk about how great a product is "out of the box")&nbsp; Also, I didn't realize Java was so crippled.&nbsp; Yeesh!&nbsp; I guess you have to have Microsoft write all your features/classes/functionality and put it in the box for you?&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with microsoft borgs, heh.<BR><BR>

</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>I don't recall bad-mouthing Java at all!&nbsp; Don't know where you got that impression.&nbsp; Java has a bunch of great functionality as well.&nbsp; An no, I don't need MS to write all of my functionality for me, but if some of that functionality is already at my disposal we reinvent the wheel?&nbsp; I've worked with your type too: You hate to use anyone elses code and would reather re-implement something over using a component or built-in functionality.&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with anti-microsoft types, heh.</P>

sdasdfgsdgsdg2006-06-19 15:56

Benanov:

People I work with have this same sort of odd compulsion.&nbsp; They wish to update a project done in revision 1.1 of our framework to the 2.0 revision (not related to .NET 1.1 vs. 2.0)<BR><BR>The amount of work necessary to port the code up that high (1.2 and 1.3 were non-trivial minor revisions of the framework and changed certain areas of the entire system pretty deeply; however none of them really marked a major version upgrade like 2.0 has) is a lot less than starting over from scratch and bringing the rules and customizations in.<BR><BR>But yet they insist.&nbsp; Especially when all of the hacks that were needed in an earlier revision of the base code to get X to work are completely useless now that X is in the framework itself.<BR>

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

Bob Smith2006-06-19 15:56

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<p>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</p>
<p><em>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</em></p>
<p>

<br>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<br><br>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<br><br>

</p>
<p>What do you gain?&nbsp; You're comparing ASP 3.0/JSP to ASP.Net and are asking the question what do you gain?&nbsp; Of course I agree that this was not the best upgrade path, but we've upgraded lots of apps to ASP.Net to take advantage of the tonnes of features/classes/functionality that is available in asp.net right out of the box.</p>

<br><br>I didn't realize it came in a box!&nbsp; (Are you a sales droid?&nbsp; Those are the only types who talk about how great a product is "out of the box")&nbsp; Also, I didn't realize Java was so crippled.&nbsp; Yeesh!&nbsp; I guess you have to have Microsoft write all your features/classes/functionality and put it in the box for you?&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with microsoft borgs, heh.<br><br>

<br><br>...here come the whiney slash-dotters<br>

DocLogic2006-06-19 15:57

<P>

Anonymous:

I've worked for managers like this in my previous job. This is enterprise-grade WTFery. Running away is the best defense strategy, as the developers will always be blamed for anything that goes wrong and the manager promoted.<BR>

</P>
<P>These decisions are ALWAYS the manager's fault. Either the manager forced the team into this situation by not providing the right tools, mandating the approach, or hiring idiots (or perhaps a combination of these). This is an extreme case, no doubt, but there are far too many bad decisions made by the wrong people that ultimately result in horrible systems. And in the end, the last developer to touch it right before it collapses is the one that gets blamed.</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>

sdasdfgsdgsdg2006-06-19 15:57

Whoops, sorry, misread your post.

Benanov2006-06-19 16:18

Anonymous:

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

<br><br>RTFP.&nbsp; Notice the word <b>our</b> before the word framework. My company has a base framework for projects that is maintained by a different department.<br><br>Sorry, please try again.<br><br><br>

Shizzle2006-06-19 16:22

kswanton:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<p>How would this conversion even work.&nbsp; All you are going to do is get a snapshot of what the page looked like for that particular run.&nbsp; I mean, the jsp would have to have code to dynamically generate the page, and saving the page would lose all that.&nbsp; This technique won't work at all, but this WTF implies that it had already been done?&nbsp; So was it in production?&nbsp; Were they still working on adding back the dynamic code to the asp pages?&nbsp; I just don't get it, this would never work, never.</p>
<p><em>[Note from Alex:&nbsp;Looking back, I realize it wasn't obvious from the write-up that they added coding to the ASPX pages saved -- I've updated the post with this as a step]</em></p>
<p>

<br>Sheeesh, the real WTF is converting to ASP.NET at all.&nbsp; I mean really, what do you gain?<br><br>But given some PHB decided they needed to do that, isn't it easier to modify the Java in the JSP to the equivalent code in ASP?&nbsp; There should almost be a 1-1 match between those two in most constructs&nbsp; and objects.&nbsp; I think it much more difficult to work with html output and try to figure out where the loops/logic/etc go, and what they were calling and what queries they were running, etc.&nbsp; Oh never mind, even my attempts at understanding how to do this the right way justify a WTF!<br><br>

</p>
<p>What do you gain?&nbsp; You're comparing ASP 3.0/JSP to ASP.Net and are asking the question what do you gain?&nbsp; Of course I agree that this was not the best upgrade path, but we've upgraded lots of apps to ASP.Net to take advantage of the tonnes of features/classes/functionality that is available in asp.net right out of the box.</p>
<p>

<br><br>I didn't realize it came in a box!&nbsp; (Are you a sales droid?&nbsp; Those are the only types who talk about how great a product is "out of the box")&nbsp; Also, I didn't realize Java was so crippled.&nbsp; Yeesh!&nbsp; I guess you have to have Microsoft write all your features/classes/functionality and put it in the box for you?&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with microsoft borgs, heh.<br><br>

</p>

<p>I don't recall bad-mouthing Java at all!&nbsp; Don't know where you got that impression.&nbsp; Java has a bunch of great functionality as well.&nbsp; An no, I don't need MS to write all of my functionality for me, but if some of that functionality is already at my disposal we reinvent the wheel?&nbsp; I've worked with your type too: You hate to use anyone elses code and would reather re-implement something over using a component or built-in functionality.&nbsp; Oh well, no point arguing with anti-microsoft types, heh.</p><p>

<br></p>My point was Java has everythign you need, and "upgrading" a Java application to .NET isn't really much of an upgrade, and is almost guaranteed to be more a pain in the butt that it is worth.&nbsp; I have no problem using someone else's code, I just prefer to be able to pick what code I'm going to use.&nbsp; Java has plenty of frameworks both free and for sale out there, but as far as I have seen, with .NET you are stuck mostly with Microsoft's vision on how things are supposed to work.<br>

Indiaformatix2006-06-19 16:24

<P>

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

</P>
<P>HA HA! Best joke of the day! No one who posts, let alone reads, this website has a girlfriend!</P>

qqqqqq2006-06-19 16:28

<P>You folks aren't thinking enterprise-y enough....</P>
<P>The static pages are dynamically generated every time. Then the asp code is stream-edited into them on-the-fly. There is, of course, the extensible <EM>option</EM> in the system to print out the resulting pages (they fall onto a wooden table), a timer snaps a digital image, which is then returned to the users' browser as a gif in a page with nothing but mapped sensitive areas.</P>

Mark H2006-06-19 16:39

I don't get it...is this another case of missing source code?<br>

JBL2006-06-19 16:40

qqqqqq:

<p>You folks aren't thinking enterprise-y enough....</p>
<p>The static pages are dynamically generated every time. Then the asp code is stream-edited into them on-the-fly. There is, of course, the extensible <em>option</em> in the system to print out the resulting pages (they fall onto a wooden table), a timer snaps a digital image, which is then returned to the users' browser as a gif in a page with nothing but mapped sensitive areas.</p>

<br>I think you've got something here -- more user involvement. Why not have the <i>user</i> do the conversion from JSP to static HTML, print whatever they need (digital image on wooden table, etc.), fill out the forms manually (including the login? what security!), and submit the paper? Tech-savvy users could use a scanner to submit a scanned image via e-mail.<br><br>Don't know what form the response pages would take.<br>

l1fel1ne2006-06-19 16:53

<P>Or instead of telling them that you re-wrote it, you put it in place without telling them (would they really notice?).</P>
<P>Then when you're "making fixes" you and the other devs find creative ways to waste your time ;)</P>

TankerJoe2006-06-19 17:02

Alex Papadimoulis:

<ol><li>Go to the File menu and click Save As.
</li><li>In the File Name box, enter the page's name, but use an ASPX at the end (i.e. "login.aspx")
</li><li>Select "Web Page, Complete" from the File Type the Click OK
</li><li>Add the newly saved file (login.aspx) and it's corresponding folder (login_files) to the ASP.NET project
</li><li>Edit the ASPX page and add the appropriate server-side code
</li><li>Navigate through the application and repeat for every page</li></ol>

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

</p>
<p>HA HA! Best joke of the day! No one who posts, let alone reads, this website has a girlfriend!</p>

<br><br>But then, who really <i>wants</i> one?<br>

Satanicpuppy2006-06-19 17:39

isaphrael:

Alex Papadimoulis:

<p>... after receiving his first assignment to make a minor change to 100+ Javascript and CSS files, Dean decided that this type enterprise is not the type of experience he's looking for.</p>

<br><br><br>wow, too bad dead didn't know that UltraEdit [www.ultraedit.com] has a 'find &amp; replace across files &amp; directories' function.<br><br>[i'm not a shill.&nbsp; at least, not a piad one]<br>

<br><br>Eh. Most web editors will do that, and hell, I can probably cobble together a shell script to do it, if I felt like re-inventing the wheel. <br><br>People who have that little idea what they're doing should never ever <i>ever</i> be allowed to work on production code. If you don't have any idea how to convert it, then don't touch it. If it absolutely has to be converted, do it right. End of story.<br><br>

Bus Raker2006-06-19 17:43

<P>

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

</P>
<P>HA HA! Best joke of the day! No one who posts, let alone reads, this website has a girlfriend!</P>
<P>

<BR><BR>But then, who really <I>wants</I> one?<BR>

</P>
<P>I believe only the females that read this forum have girlfriends.</P>

maht2006-06-19 18:08

I could factorize that with a sed script to get rid of the folders<br><br>"ultraedit, seartch &amp; replace across directories"&nbsp; pah, that sort of thinking is what comes from using Windows for too long.<br><br>A bit of shell scripting was able to do that 30 years ago, it really isn't hard.<br><br>The use of Windows in an educational enviroment should be left until the final year and even then for one semester.<br><br><br>

OneFactor2006-06-19 18:20

<P>

Anonymous:

<BR><BR>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <BR><BR>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<BR>

</P>
<P>Exactly, the proper "Enterprise" solution to bad directives from a manager should already belong to our collective memories. But for those who have forgotten:</P>
<P>Commodore Matt Decker: For the fourth time,&nbsp;a rewrite is not on the table.<BR>Spock: That sir, would be suicide. Attempted suicide is evidence of mental instability. If you persist in this course of action, I will&nbsp;relieve you of duty,&nbsp;have security escort you off the bridge, and into sickbay for medical treatment.<BR>Decker: You're bluffing.<BR>Spock: Vulcan's never bluff.<BR>Decker: No, I don't suppose they do...</P>

Jon2006-06-19 18:26

Anonymous:

I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit.

That's the thing: they 'say' they would do it, but it doesn't mean they actually would.

Gene Wirchenko2006-06-19 18:38

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit.

<br><br>That's the thing: they 'say' they would do it, but it doesn't mean they actually would.

<br><br>Whether they actually do or not, it probably does affect morale.&nbsp; Some may not quit on the spot, but maybe, they start looking elsewhere.<br><br>Sincerely,<br><br>Gene Wirchenko<br><br>

ME2006-06-19 18:58

wouldn't mind one, but I don't think my wife would approve!!<br>

ME2006-06-19 18:59

that last message was in relpy to this<br><br>

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

<p>

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

FWIW, I would have rewritten the site anyway on my own time.&nbsp; When el senior management comes by to see the progress, show them the enhancements to see if they are good to go---THEN drop the bomb that you rewrote everything.

</p>
<p>HA HA! Best joke of the day! No one who posts, let alone reads, this website has a girlfriend!</p>

<br><br>But then, who really <i>wants</i> one?<br>

TH2006-06-19 19:05

<i>I'd sure like to have asked the PHB <b>why</b> a rewrite was out of the question.<br><br></i>I recently left a place with this same attitude. The reason generally given was that the app works: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".<br><br>What it really means is that management thinks a rewrite will be over budget, take too long, and won't work when its finished; they don't trust programmers to get the job done. Even if maintenance ends up costing more in the long run, its predictable and very low risk.<i><br>
</i>

nsimeonov2006-06-19 19:23

<P>

Gene Wirchenko:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit.

<BR><BR>That's the thing: they 'say' they would do it, but it doesn't mean they actually would.

<BR><BR>Whether they actually do or not, it probably does affect morale.&nbsp; Some may not quit on the spot, but maybe, they start looking elsewhere.<BR><BR>Sincerely,<BR><BR>Gene Wirchenko<BR><BR>

</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>Oh boy... I would really want to start working for a company like this..... BUT as a contractor! People like this are like a gold mine. Anything better than what they have would be amazing to them and hence (over)charging them wouldn't be&nbsp;a problem. Besides I've seen much worse cases, so fixing this one wouldn't be such a big deal...</P>

nsimeonov2006-06-19 19:34

<P>

Anonymous:

<I>I'd sure like to have asked the PHB <B>why</B> a rewrite was out of the question.<BR><BR></I>I recently left a place with this same attitude. The reason generally given was that the app works: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".<BR><BR>What it really means is that management thinks a rewrite will be over budget, take too long, and won't work when its finished; they don't trust programmers to get the job done. Even if maintenance ends up costing more in the long run, its predictable and very low risk.<I><BR></I>

</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>So did they give you deadlines or so? With a sh***y project like this&nbsp; you could "milk the cow" and&nbsp;relax while doing next to nothing until they are convinced that a rewrite may help actually... just an idea.. hate saying this but I know people doing this and actually being happy about it.</P>

Roger2006-06-19 20:46

Can I have the manager's job please? :D

Michael Rutherfurd2006-06-19 20:51

nsimeonov:

<P>

Gene Wirchenko:

Anonymous:

Anonymous:

I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit.

<BR><BR>That's the thing: they 'say' they would do it, but it doesn't mean they actually would.

<BR><BR>Whether they actually do or not, it probably does affect morale.&nbsp; Some may not quit on the spot, but maybe, they start looking elsewhere.<BR><BR>Sincerely,<BR><BR>Gene Wirchenko<BR><BR>

</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>Oh boy... I would really want to start working for a company like this..... BUT as a contractor! People like this are like a gold mine. Anything better than what they have would be amazing to them and hence (over)charging them wouldn't be&nbsp;a problem. Besides I've seen much worse cases, so fixing this one wouldn't be such a big deal...</P>
<P>

</P>
<P>I'm currently in the process of doing the opposite :-) We have both IIS (vb.net running asmx web services) and Tomcat (running the web application) running on the same web servers. The original designer could not figure out how to write web services in java. I got so sick of the conflicts and complexities that I started the rewrite in my own time at home. Luckily my wife is an understanding sort :-) Happy ending is that when I told the manager what I was doing he insisted on paying me for the work :-) </P>

sdasdfgsdgsdg2006-06-19 21:15

Benanov:

Anonymous:

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

<BR><BR>RTFP.&nbsp; Notice the word <B>our</B> before the word framework. My company has a base framework for projects that is maintained by a different department.<BR><BR>Sorry, please try again.<BR><BR><BR>

I <STRONG>did</STRONG> apologize, dumb ass.

ithika2006-06-19 21:45

Anonymous:

I <strong>did</strong> apologize, dumb ass.

<br><br>Are all your apologies so gracious?<br>

Cheong2006-06-19 22:30

Anonymous:

<p>I would have used a crawler like web whacker and resticted to the site, and have a static picture of site in minutes. </p>
<p>Then calclulated the time it would have take and devote&nbsp;the time to find a new job!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>WTF- rewrite is off the table, for a conversion!!!!

</p><p>Yes. Using programs like "wget" would be a lot faster than using "Save as" for each page in IE... but perheps you still got a chance.</p>1) Copy all the image/script folder from the old JSP site to the new ASP.NET site.<br>2) Use "search" with "project" scope to search all lines contains ".file" folder names and replace them one by one.<br>3) Rename all the ".file" folder to ".file_" and see if anything is missing. Adjust accordingly.<br><br>If the there's no further trouble involved, all the conversion would be done from "within an afternoon" to "one week", and the manager would be happy to grant your the time to "remove the pin at the a**" (This should prevent him from hiring decent enough developers)<br><br><br>

mjonhanson2006-06-19 22:37

This amazing piece of sh...WTFery...I'm 90% sure is brought to you by
the 29th member on the Fortune 500 list.&nbsp; I spent some time on a project
there, cutting and pasting mainframe "forms" into .asp pages and adding
the naughty server bits later.&nbsp; The real WTF is that it may be the
same application, probably converted from asp to jsp to .net.&nbsp;
Classic.&nbsp; I ran away quickly from this one too, smartest thing I
ever did.<br>

lrb2006-06-19 22:50

<P>The secret is to not ever refer to what you are doing as a rewrite.&nbsp; Instead call&nbsp; it a shortcut, streamlining, or someother phraseology&nbsp; that connotates doing it cheaper, faster, and/or more efficiently.&nbsp; </P>
<P>Then do it the way that best meets the constraints in resources and time that have been allocated for the project.&nbsp; Most management hasn't a clue so long as you use the words that they're looking for.&nbsp; </P>
<P>Manager:&nbsp; "You're not doing a rewrite are you?"</P>
<P>Me: "No, I'm taking the fastest and cheapest approach?&nbsp; Do, you want me to do it slower or more costly?"</P>
<P>Manager: " No, of course not.&nbsp; Only a idiot would ask for something like that.&nbsp; BTW how's that new web app coming?&nbsp; You're not using any other tools other than notepad are you?"</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>

RyuO2006-06-19 23:28

mjonhanson:

This amazing piece of sh...WTFery...I'm 90% sure is brought to you by
the 29th member on the Fortune 500 list.&nbsp; I spent some time on a project
there, cutting and pasting mainframe "forms" into .asp pages and adding
the naughty server bits later.&nbsp; The real WTF is that it may be the
same application, probably converted from asp to jsp to .net.&nbsp;
Classic.&nbsp; I ran away quickly from this one too, smartest thing I
ever did.<br>

<br>I've worked for about 20 companies in the Fortune 500, and if you count nested subcontractors, probably twice that. I can tell you from personal experience that any one of them is capable of doing something that dumb; not only that, but on a scale far beyond what we're talking about here. The ASP converter looks to be a $2m project - multiply that by 300 and you're up in the EDS/Telco/Accenture range.<br><br>Sometimes it helps to try to duplicate the thought processes that cause these debacles; what sounds right to me is:<br><ul><li>They gave me a $2m budget,</li><li>To manage a bunch of techies for a year,</li><li>I'm not accountable for WHAT gets done,</li><li>But my peers will think I'm not a team player if I make demands on them,</li><li>So I can't change anything outside my project.</li></ul>See, rational decision-making, <u>and</u> a WTF! What Joy!<br>

This will create a copy of the site (with 32 levels of deep):<br>
<br>
wget -r -l 32 --no-parent http://serversite/page/<br>
<br>
theres even shareware tools for windows, that most users know, teleport or other.<br>
<br>
you can even download a help compiler, and build a CHM file from that
mirror.&nbsp; Having a compresses file copy of the old site can be
convenient.<br>
<br>
Also can be a good idea to buy a book about reformulation (yea, I know, that is a migration, but anyway... )<br>
<br>
--Tei<br>
<br>
<br>

Joe Bloggs2006-06-20 03:43

&gt;WRONG! Where are non-US companies ?<br><br>Outside the US is naught but formless ghosts, miles of howling wasteland and currencies entirely unlike the US Lira.<br><br>This post brought to you by the leaning captcha of pizza.<br>

belugabob2006-06-20 04:00

<P>

Anonymous:

<BR><BR>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <BR><BR>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<BR>

</P>
<P>Those programmers probably wasted several years 'trying to make things better' in previous jobs and have decided to not go through the heartache again. Unless you've been in this soul destroying situation, I'm not surprised that you 'don't get it'.<BR>By all means try to convince the PHB that there's a better way to do things, but try to recognise a lost cause when you see one.</P>

It shouldn't be one of these though, one may expect these companies to have decent IT personnel. Except number 13: I'm sure there's no development being done at Berkshire Hathaway.

agh!2006-06-20 04:46

Anonymous:

<P>

Anonymous:

<BR><BR>I find it pretty amazing how many of you say you would up an quit. Maybe its just me but if you have the attitude of "my boss told me to do something that is stupid so i will just quit" why not go for broke and tell him its stupid. Say this isn't the best way of doing things, here are the reasons why, and here is the way it should be done. <BR><BR>This site is full of stories about programmers that would rather cut and run then try to make it better. Thats the real WTF.<BR>

</P>
<P>Those programmers probably wasted several years 'trying to make things better' in previous jobs and have decided to not go through the heartache again. Unless you've been in this soul destroying situation, I'm not surprised that you 'don't get it'.<BR>By all means try to convince the PHB that there's a better way to do things, but try to recognise a lost cause when you see one.</P>
<P>

</P>
<P>I try to detect bad situations like this at interview time and avoid starting there in the first place.&nbsp; If I'm in the bad situation I try once, and once only to explain the problem to get things changed.&nbsp; Past experience teaches me that if they don't listen the first time, they are not going to and it's time to bail out.&nbsp; Life's too short for putting up with that bad situation.</P>
<P>For "Large Enterprise" read "capable of even greater stupidity than you though imaginable".&nbsp; Politics comes into play too much in large enterprises.&nbsp; Politics and (software) engineering don't mix.</P>

GD2006-06-20 04:51

winhttrack (freeware) will do it on windoze

photogenic captcha

BlueEagle2006-06-20 06:36

The dictionary needs revision:

en·ter·prise P Pronunciation Key (ntr-prz)
n.
1. An undertaking, especially one of some scope, complication, and risk.
2. A business organization.
3. Industrious, systematic activity, especially when directed toward profit: Private enterprise is basic to capitalism.
4. Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative: “Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs” (Henry David Thoreau).
5. Manegemental IT-stupidity carried out by subdued subjects often producing solutions that are far from businessenhancing: We need to make our webpages enterprise.

avery2006-06-20 06:49

<P>it would be much easier to build another similar&nbsp;application in .net than try editing those files. ^_^</P>
<P>i've tried conversion from a java based project into the asp .net framework, but i did not use the same files, except for the css i think.</P>

doodle2006-06-20 07:49

<P>

Alex Papadimoulis:

wow, too bad dead didn't know that UltraEdit [www.ultraedit.com] has a 'find &amp; replace across files &amp; directories' function.<BR><BR>[i'm not a shill.&nbsp; at least, not a piad one]<BR>

</P>
<P>So does Visual Studio... he had the tool right there in front of him!</P>

coz2006-06-20 08:47

<P>Visual Slickedit also....but that's already considering solving this stupid task.</P>
<P>But WAIT..."Let's talk about...money" How much was he paid by the "Enterprise"; what salary did he have...because you see...you can always say "OK, I'm almost done, just a few minor bug fixes remain"....and you can stretch that for months on end...'till you buy a nice car, or for a Eurpean vacation...and then quit, saying "My efforts are not appreciated! All these pages I ported from ASP to JSP (or whatever), and still no raise, no promotion...not even feedback....I'm pissed off! I quit!" ....Sadly I know of such case in reality...I'll tell you another time ; </P>
<P>&nbsp;</P>
<P>Nice site; makes my day, every Day !</P>

Todd Hile-Hoffer2006-06-20 10:28

Television God is&nbsp;so right. If you&nbsp;have the skills then re-do as much of the project that you can. Talk to your manager and explain what it is going on. If you can't help him to see...&nbsp;Then find someone who will.

masklinn2006-06-20 11:00

Anonymous:

winhttrack (freeware) will do it on windoze

photogenic captcha

<p>It's built on wget anyway, and I found wget to be much more stable and reliable if slightly harder to get the first time around.</p>

impslayer2006-06-20 11:56

<P>

Benanov:

Anonymous:

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

<BR><BR>RTFP.&nbsp; Notice the word <B>our</B> before the word framework. My company has a base framework for projects that is maintained by a different department.<BR><BR>Sorry, please try again.<BR><BR><BR>

</P>
<P>Heh, another one to post without looking through all posts...&nbsp;The WTF&nbsp;is that the post just before this IS an apology for said mistake :)</P>

lrb2006-06-20 12:24

impslayer:

<P>

Benanov:

Anonymous:

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

<BR><BR>RTFP.&nbsp; Notice the word <B>our</B> before the word framework. My company has a base framework for projects that is maintained by a different department.<BR><BR>Sorry, please try again.<BR><BR><BR>

</P>
<P>Heh, another one to post without looking through all posts...&nbsp;The WTF&nbsp;is that the post just before this IS an apology for said mistake :)</P>
<P>

</P>
<P>The post before was an apology, however the apology had no context to let it be known what previous&nbsp;post of the author's it, the apology post, was apologizing.&nbsp; Also, the time lag between the 2 post was only about 24 minutes, could be just a time lag.&nbsp; Not everyone refreshes and checks for new post before posting.&nbsp; The real WTF&nbsp;IMO&nbsp;is cases where people&nbsp;assume too much and investigate too little before posting a condescending reply.&nbsp; But that's only human nature.</P>

Webzter2006-06-20 12:45

<P>Man, so Dean quit over a simple find and replace job? I'm guessing this had to be the final straw and he wanted to quit anyway. Anyone that hopes to survive a Fortune 500 with their sanity in-tact had better become a competent guerilla coder.</P>
<P>Just looking at this limited example, it seems that it would have been trivial for Dean to write a sed script, or a vb script, or used Visual Studio / UltraEdit / EditPlus, or a myriad of other tools for the replace. Or, if all of the files were identical, he could, I dunno, change one file and then overlay all of the others.</P>
<P>Getting fancier, it would have been trivial to move the common files to a common place and rewritten the aspx pages to point to the new location. If he needed to tell someone, he could have called it 'a necessary architectural refactoring'. Managers eat that shit up with a spoon. It would be fairly trivial to baseline the savings in terms of hours needed for future, similar, enhancements.</P>
<P>It's a useful strategy to carry forward with the rest of the application as well. As new enhancements come in, add a small amount of time for refactoring, or unit testing, whatever. Either be straightforward with what the time is being used for or bury it... either way, it's a simple case for the effort. If it comes to it, it wouldn't be hard to insist that the rework is needed in order to accomplish some part of the enhancement. Your manager will likely either not be tech-savvy enough to really know or know you're bluffing but care about the quality of the system as well.</P>
<P>I had the opportunity to squeeze in a rewrite of a horrific system at work. The reason they didn't want to properly rewrite the system was due to both dev and QA cost. I worked on the rewrite on my free time (between projects, over lunch, other time at work that's typically wasted). I was able to reduce the code base by 73% while adding a full suite of unit tests. Once I was done, it was painless to lay a case out for my boss on how many hours would be saved on maintenance (this was one of our costliest components to maintain). After showing him the code reduction, the automated unit tests, and the estimated support savings, funding came very quickly for QA testing.</P>

Benanov2006-06-20 13:17

lrb:

impslayer:

<p>

Benanov:

Anonymous:

There are no 1.2 and 1.3 versions of the .NET framework.

<br><br>RTFP.&nbsp; Notice the word <b>our</b> before the word framework. My company has a base framework for projects that is maintained by a different department.<br><br>Sorry, please try again.<br><br><br>

</p>
<p>Heh, another one to post without looking through all posts...&nbsp;The WTF&nbsp;is that the post just before this IS an apology for said mistake :)</p>
<p>

</p>
<p>The post before was an apology, however the apology had no context to let it be known what previous&nbsp;post of the author's it, the apology post, was apologizing.&nbsp; Also, the time lag between the 2 post was only about 24 minutes, could be just a time lag.&nbsp; Not everyone refreshes and checks for new post before posting.&nbsp; The real WTF&nbsp;IMO&nbsp;is cases where people&nbsp;assume too much and investigate too little before posting a condescending reply.&nbsp; But that's only human nature.</p>

<br><br>As the original poster, I definitely missed that apology post.&nbsp; Going back and reading it...it's not linked to any of the previous posts at all, so that's probably why I missed it.<br><br>So, my apology is warranted here.&nbsp; Sorry I missed your post, Mr sdfasdgasdgsadg.<br><br>At any rate...let's just forget the whole thing, shall we?

merreborn2006-06-20 13:48

Anonymous:

Man, so Dean quit over a simple find and replace job?

<br><br>Find and replace is not a workable development methodology.&nbsp; This wasn't ONE find and replace, this was a career of find and replaces we're talking about.<br><br>Back when I started here, we didn't use version control.&nbsp; My boss made me merge and remerge 3 source trees using WinDiff every few days.&nbsp; Those were dark, dark times.&nbsp; I begged for CVS, got it, and suddenly my productivity shot up 300% -- since I didn't have to spend most of my week crawling through WinDiff.<br><br>Of course, the Indian programmer we had on the team liked to cvs update his directory on the server, over-write the entire dir with his entire local copy of the code (wiping out any changes brought in by the update) and commit, backing out all our changes.&nbsp; He also liked to wrap 70 line javascript functions in PHP echos, instead of just writing 'em raw.&nbsp; God was I glad when we god rid of him.<br>

tony2006-06-20 13:58

<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Verdana size=2>Why are so many people talking about ways to convert from JSP to ASP.NET?&nbsp; The site has already been converted.&nbsp;<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp;</SPAN>The WTF has been committed and its history.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><FONT face=Verdana size=2>&nbsp;</FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Verdana size=2>Dean's&nbsp;role in this organization was to&nbsp;<STRONG><U><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana">maintain</SPAN></U></STRONG> a large and growing web application.&nbsp; If he really wanted to get enterprise experience, he should have made an effort to refactor the application.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp;</SPAN>In the long run, Dean could have gained great experience transforming a WTF into true enterprise application for a fortune 50 company.</FONT></P>

home homine lupus est2006-06-20 14:02

merreborn:

<br>Find and replace is not a workable
development methodology.&nbsp; This wasn't ONE find and replace, this
was a career of find and replaces we're talking about.<br>

<br>
<br>
Theres good editors out here:<br>
<br>
VI, is the better, widen support (sudo apt-get gvim)<br>
EMACS, is to complex <br>
Notepad, is slighty underpowered, the windows native one.<br>
JEdit, written in java<br>
Perl, is read only<br>
SciTE, is a secret and forbidden cult<br>
Visual C++6 with Tomato, you can code Perl with it!<br>
<br>
I think can be a good idea to use a editor that support Reformulation
features. The machine can understand code, with a parser that support
the sintax of lang. So can be mostly safe to rename functions and
variables to fit conventions, and fix typo/mental errors. <br>
<br>
I have a secret guru here, on my city, and this guy say:<br>
<br>
"Code evolve, and good code evolve to be flexible".<br>
<br>
Too bad my secret guru is a .NET coder, and I code on PHP, Perl, C and Javascript :(((( <br>
<br>
--Tei<br>
<br>
<br>

aikimark2006-06-20 16:39

Anonymous:

<P><STRONG>How would you smartasses QUICKLY convert a jsp application to an aspx application ?!</STRONG>

</P>
<P>I would use Microsoft's variant, J# and the latest VisualStudio.Net IDE</P>
<P>I would put the current Java code through some kind of analysis tool and look at places to refactor the code.</P>

enterprisey!2006-06-20 16:53

Alex Papadimoulis:

<p><br>When <strong>Dean Cleaver</strong> took a job at a large corporation, he was expecting to experience some enterprise. After all, the company was in the top 50 of the Fortune 500, so if anyone would have enterprise, it sure would be these guys. </p>
<p>Dean's specific role in this organization was to be one of six developers on a newly-created team to maintain a large and growing web application. In his orientation, he learned that the application was converted from Java Server Pages to ASP.NET about a year ago and that rewriting the application was "off the table" for now. Dean thought it was a bit odd that the manager mentioned this *four separate times* without being prompted or asked in any way, but didn't otherwise take much note of it.</p>
<p>When it finally came time to dig into the code, Dean noticed that a few "quirks" remained from the JSP-ASP.NET conversion. Oh, and I should probably mention that "quirks" is my word choice. The exact words that Dean used to describe these were a bit too harsh for this or, really, any publication hoping to make it past even the most liberal firewall. The conversion process used might explain why:</p>
<ol>
<li>Open up the Web Application in a web browser (the login page will appear)
</li><li>Go to the File menu and click Save As.
</li><li>In the File Name box, enter the page's name, but use an ASPX at the end (i.e. "login.aspx")
</li><li>Select "Web Page, Complete" from the File Type the Click OK
</li><li>Add the newly saved file (login.aspx) and it's corresponding folder (login_files) to the ASP.NET project
</li><li>Edit the ASPX page and add the appropriate server-side code
</li><li>Navigate through the application and repeat for every page</li></ol>
<p>For the IE deprived, allow me to expand on step four. When Internet Explorer saves as a "Web Page, Complete" it creates a folder (e.g. "login_files"), downloads *all* image, javascript, and CSS files, and places them all in that folder. It then saves the file with all of the image, javascript, and CSS references pointing to that folder. For example, saving a "Web Page, Complete" from this very site produces no less than seventeen files in that folder.</p>
<p>But back to Dean, there were, all in all, there were 203 ASPX pages, 121 "_files" folders, and just as many copies of the same images, stylesheets, and javascripts. To remain consistent, each page had a slightly different coding style and communicated with each other in a slightly different manner. Some of the central pages had to read input parameters (such as username) in the querystring, cookies, and session.</p>
<p>The database, at first glance, was about at the same level. Unfortunately, we won't get to see that in much detail as, after receiving his first assignment to make a minor change to 100+ Javascript and CSS files, Dean decided that this type enterprise is not the type of experience he's looking for.</p>

<br><br>this is nothing...&nbsp; wait until they convert it back to jsp...<br><br>THEEEEEENNNNNN... you'll see a real enterprisey wtf!<br>

TC2006-06-20 16:53

<P>There are plenty of Open Source .Net projects. Besides,&nbsp;using Java,&nbsp;you are stuck with Sun's way of doing things instead of MS. I went to a news update on Sun's visions for Java recently. They seemed to be stuck. They had a new way of dotting your way through xml, but that was about it. Borring and depressing, as I think there is room for improvement in Java. I work with Java and .Net 50/50. I prefer .Net because&nbsp;I think that&nbsp;its easier to use. I simply think that the framework is easier to work with.</P>

nsimeonov2006-06-20 17:17

Anonymous:

<P>There are plenty of Open Source .Net projects. Besides,&nbsp;using Java,&nbsp;you are stuck with Sun's way of doing things instead of MS. I went to a news update on Sun's visions for Java recently. They seemed to be stuck. They had a new way of dotting your way through xml, but that was about it. Borring and depressing, as I think there is room for improvement in Java. I work with Java and .Net 50/50. I prefer .Net because&nbsp;I think that&nbsp;its easier to use. I simply think that the framework is easier to work with.</P>
<P>

My point was Java has everythign you need, and "upgrading" a Java application to .NET isn't really much of an upgrade, and is almost guaranteed to be more a pain in the butt that it is worth.&nbsp; I have no problem using someone else's code, I just prefer to be able to pick what code I'm going to use.&nbsp; Java has plenty of frameworks both free and for sale out there, but as far as I have seen, with .NET you are stuck mostly with Microsoft's vision on how things are supposed to work.<BR>

</P>
<P>There are plenty of free and commercial&nbsp;frameworks for .NET too but for the most part you don't need them because they're built-in and are supported by a billion dollar company. </P>

Dean Cleaver2006-06-20 19:15

<P>Many are saying "search and replace". That's great for single lines of code. Doesn't work when they have the same javascript blocks in 33 pages, and call it from just one. Also doesn't work when 33 pages have 33 <STRONG>different</STRONG> style sheets - or at least 33&nbsp;different paths to the same sheet name&nbsp;- search and replace is simply not a viable solution to that problem.</P>
<P>Of the 123 style sheets, they were all named the same and in different folders, but many of them had been changed. So it wasn't just a case of "stick them all in one folder and S&amp;R the css in the pages" - you think I don't know that trick already? 23 years of programming experience, I do know what I'm doing. I basically had to windiff every css in every folder, compare them, and try to create a "master" with all the extra bits from every file added.</P>
<P>The original JSP site was written by an outside company - because we didn't have access to the source, that's why my predecessor screen scraped it. If he had the source, I'm sure he would have made a tidier mess of it. So this isn't about conversion of JSP to ASP.Net - it's about screen-scraping what just happened to be a JSP site into ASP.Net.</P>
<P>And perhaps I should add that I was there on contract to do specific jobs on this site - not to fix it, but I ended up having to. In my own time. At my expense. As several people have suggested I should have. I just didn't want to hang around trying to get blood out of a stone - they had a budget of between $1 and $2, and wanted a Rolls Royce for that money...</P>

tin2006-06-20 19:36

Anonymous:

why not go for broke and tell him its stupid.

<br><br>Because it doesnt work most of the time. It does depend on the manager, but a lot aren't their because of their skill in the type of work that's being done. Most are their because they can manage money and be political.<br><br>I've had my fair share of bosses that havent a clue, but they know what they want. You can put your point in when they dont know what they want, but if they've seen or heard of something, theirs no changing their mind. eg, one guy I worked for heard about a particular program, and I spent 2 minutes trying the demo, 3 minutes looking for a free thing, found one exactly the same but written in Java and didnt export to Word docs (did export to HTML though), showed the boss, and he still wanted the $100 per license version.<br>

Just Me2006-06-21 01:27

I know about wget and it's also available for Windows as a stand-alone binary (haven't used it much since I don't use Windows anywhere so I don't know if it's 1:1 to *nixes wget)...<br>

masklinn2006-06-21 02:30

Anonymous:

I don't know if it's 1:1 to *nixes wget)...<br>

It is as far as I can tell (at least the one I have is)

makomk2006-07-01 06:30

Anonymous:

<P>The original JSP site was written by an outside company - because we didn't have access to the source, that's why my predecessor screen scraped it. If he had the source, I'm sure he would have made a tidier mess of it. So this isn't about conversion of JSP to ASP.Net - it's about screen-scraping what just happened to be a JSP site into ASP.Net.</P>

In a particularly awful way. Though it could be worse - he could've done it on a site that used frames (if he did, IE would've saved the HTML of all the frames in the _files folder, then created new subfolders for the contents of each frame...)